The Republican Donor Class Doesn't Understand What We're Up Against

RUSH: I sometimes wonder, and I'm sure you do, too, if the Republican Party really knows what they're up against. Let me tell you a little story here that happens to be true. I don't think the Republicans have the slightest idea. I think they are so far behind the times, in terms of where the culture is. They certainly do not know, I'm convinced, enough about their political opponents to effectively deal with 'em.

Try this. This is a short little story, not a big deal. It's from CBS Eyeball News in Annapolis, Maryland. Just recently last week in the election, Annapolis elected a Republican mayor. Now, Maryland is a suburb of Moscow. I mean, Maryland is a blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue state. You can't smoke in your own apartment if somebody can smell it 300 feet, i.e., a football field away, when everybody's windows are closed. I mean, it's lost. Maryland's gone. The only thing good about that is they don't have hardly any electoral votes. But, I mean, when Barbara Mikulski is a sex symbol, you know what that state has to offer.

You hadn't heard that, Snerdley? Well, I know you have to pretend. Okay. If you don't like sex symbol, if Barbara Mikulski is what everybody wants to be, then that should tell you. Okay? But somehow in Annapolis, which is where the Naval Academy is, they elected a Republican. And here's the story. "Days after a Republican was elected mayor of Annapolis, City Council members say they will revisit legislation that would strip the mayor’s office of much of its power."

Since a Republican won, they're going to pass legislation that basically makes it a ceremonial position, until the next time the Democrat wins it, then they'll reinstall the powers. "Democratic Alderman Ross Arnett of Ward 8 tells The Capital he will introduce a charter amendment to move Annapolis to a council-manager style of government. The city manager would report directly to the City Council, not the mayor. Under Arnett’s legislation, the mayor’s post would be largely ceremonial."

The city manager would report directly to the city council, not the mayor. Under his legislation the mayor's post would be ceremonial. The mayor would retain a single vote on the council. Arnett says the change would stabilize the city's management. Now, I know a lot of communities, the mayor is a nonvoting member or a one-vote member of the town council. But not the case in Annapolis. This is what the Democrats are gonna do. They're just gonna invalidate the guy's election.

Now, what did they do after George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000? They basically set out to invalidate it. And this is who they are. You're sitting around now asking me every other day, "Why don't the Republicans do X?" And I think the overall answer is I don't think they really know what they're up against. I honestly believe that, folks. I don't think they know what they're up against. And if, for example, in 2016, if a Republican is elected, do you think the Democrats are just gonna sit there and accept it? If a Republican's elected president, do you think they're just gonna sit there and say, "Well, okay, you Republicans won and, yeah, you can have the judge appointments that you want."

Do you think that's gonna happen? But I think this is classic. Now, that's just half of the story. Because while the Democrats in Annapolis, Maryland, and it's a harbinger of what's gonna happen anywhere Republicans happen to win elections, the Democrats, if they hold a majority anywhere else in the government, it's a city, town, state, federal government, they're gonna do what they can to invalidate that election or they're gonna do what they can to emaciate the Republican who wins office. Pure gutter, no-holds-barred fisticuffs politics. In other words, the Democrats say to themselves, "We never lose." When they lose, they're just gonna make sure their opponents are stripped of power and have no ability to implement anything.

And why wouldn't they? I mean, here we have all these stories about massive numbers of people ticked off at Obamacare and Obama. Is anybody in the street protesting it? Is somebody out there acting really mad about it? You know, Occupy Wall Street was manufactured out of nothing to protest nothing and it was made to look like it was real and it was big, and they were protesting nothing. Now, by tradition, the Republicans do not protest. They do not march. They don't do any of this civil disobedience stuff. It's not in their DNA. But where are all these people running through the streets livid over the fact that they were lied to by the president? I mean, this is huge. It's huge and it's personal, but you don't see that, do you?

Now, the media is partly responsible, but that's a known quantity, too. Okay, so this is bad enough. Elect a Republican mayor in Annapolis, Maryland, and Democrats make a move to make him ceremonial. 'Cause they control the town council and they're just gonna change the way the whole town's government's structured. They're gonna make this guy a nonentity. Now, the Republican establishment has had announced -- well, I don't know if they announced it. But the Republican establishment is targeting Tea Party officeholders, and they're going to primary them. And you know who's doing this is donors, Republican Party donors. In Alabama, First Congressional District, a set of GOP donors set its sight on someone they perceive as having caused the government shutdown, Michigan Congressman Justin Amash.

"Business leaders are plotting to take down Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) as part of a broader effort to punish lawmakers over the government shutdown. In a letter obtained by The Hill, prominent Michigan donors request financial backing for Amash’s primary challenger, Brian Ellis. Seven individuals, including prominent Michigan businessmen Mark Bissell, J.C. Huizenga and Mike Jandernoa, signed the fundraising plea. They argue that Amash 'and others have effectively nullified the Republican majority in the U.S. House.'"

These are Republican donors. The donor class has now begun to target Tea Party Republicans to get rid of them. In other words, the Republican Party donor class has now begun to target conservative Republicans in the House to get rid of them, because they are nullifying the GOP establishment majority in the House. Now, all's fair in politics, don't misunderstand. Not crying over spilt milk about that. I just think you ought to know that while the Democrats are planning on stripping power from every Republican they can do that with, the Republicans are also aiming at their own.

The Republican rich business donor class, as it's now known, seeks to unseat every Tea Party member of Congress in the House of Representatives so as to empower the establishment Republican majority so that there will be no opposition to, say, amnesty. So that there will be no opposition to whatever the establishment wants to do on the budget. So that there would be no opposition to whatever the establishment majority wants to do on anything. And it is a coordinated effort.

So while you have Tea Party groups that are out there, like FreedomWorks, any number of other organizations doing everything they can to find Tea Party candidates to run, and, in fact, run against establishment Republicans, I mean, I gotta be honest, it goes both ways. It's the internecine war that's going on out there. I just find it fascinating that the donor class has entered the fray on the side of the establishment. And I'm sure that one of the reasons why is they don't think the Tea Party will ever be the majority of anything, and they don't want to sidle up to that. So I just find it fascinating. The Republicans continue to destroy themselves while the Democrats do that, too.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, the donors say, "No, no, no, no, no. No, no. No, no. The donors are upset at the shutdown. They don't like it. The Republican establishment did not like the government shutdown, so that the donors say that they're going after Amash in Michigan because he supported the shutdown, and why did he support the shutdown? To try to repeal Obamacare. So the donors are saying that they don't think the Republicans should have do defund Obamacare even now.

They're doing this now, in the midst of what is an absolute debacle and failure. The Republican donors just can't seem to bring themselves to oppose Obama on anything. By extension, it seems like the Republican establishment has a tough time opposing Obama on anything, so they gotta go after their own. Here's the article on TheHill.com. "Amash is among a rebel bloc of House Republicans who pushed Speaker John Boehner to make a stand on Obamacare in the fight over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling."

See, in the world I live in, those are resume enhancers.

In the world I live in, Justin Amash and these guys get a standing ovation. In the world I live in, we need everybody in the House being like this. We need some brawlers. We need some people who are not afraid to do battle with the Democrats to save the country. You know, that's what it comes down to. In addition to everything else going on, the Republican donor class, the consultant class, the Republican establishment, they don't think there's any emergency.

Obamacare's not an emergency, just the latest Democrat legislation.

There is no debt crisis.

It's not any big deal.

The country isn't threatened. Our way of life's not being upset. There's nothing upset here. Everything's fine. "It's just the Democrats are in power, and that's what we gotta fix. We've gotta put ourselves back in power so that we're in charge of it money and not them," but they don't think there's a crisis. They're not concerned that their kids or grandkids are gonna have nothing when they grow up. They're not concerned about the jobs and the economy and any of that.

It doesn't appear. They don't think there's a crisis. That really is the dividing line between the Tea Party and the establishment. The Tea Party thinks if something isn't done, the country as founded will not exist. Those guys don't think that. The Republican establishment thinks that's hooey. The donors class says, "What do you mean, the country's not gonna exist as founded? What the hell are you talking about?" That's kook talk, they think. They just don't believe it, and that is the dividing line.

There are couple others, too, but that is the big line of demarcation, of difference. No, they don't see what's happening. They don't think it's a harbinger that the country is under assault and they don't see the Democrats as trying to "re-found" the country, if you will. They don't see the Democrats as anything other than the current officeholders. They don't think that there's any crisis. They really don't.

Plus, donors are like anybody. They want to be close to power. They wants cronyism, not ideology. They want crony. They want to get close to power so that a Republican president will do nice things for their business, in pay off or donations like it's happening with Obama. They're not ideologues. and they think with the Tea Party out there the Republicans are never gonna win anything and they're never gonna be close to power, so their problem is the Tea Party.

The way the donors and the establishment look at it, the Tea Party is what's gonna prevent them from ever regaining power, not the Democrats. It's the Tea Party -- and if you don't understand that, nothing will make sense about any of this.